


Falling Angel, Rising Demon

by EssayOfThoughts



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Jace Does Have Demon Blood, Alternate Universe - Jace Is Valentine's Son, Consequences, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 21:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17332658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Chained, chained deep in the hold of the ship, is a shining form so bright it can only be an angel.





	Falling Angel, Rising Demon

**Author's Note:**

> Some general notes before we begin: while this story largely hinges on events as they happen in the TV show, some aspects are going to pull a little more from the books and film, specifically the fact the Institute in books and film is _much_ emptier. I'm also mostly just winging it. To clarify, if tags didn't do so adequately, the main points of divergence from canon are as follows:
> 
> 1\. Jace _is_ Valentine's son.  
> 2\. Jace _does_ have Demon's blood.  
> 3\. In this Universe there is _no_ Sebastian (which is a shame because I kind of love the bastard).
> 
> Mostly I kind of wanted to dig into something which annoys me about the books which is less of an issue in the show, because of how the timeline is crushed down. Specifically, I wanted to dig into how, in the books, implied somewhat in the one film, and to a lesser extent in the show, Clary and Jace still have feelings for one another when they believe themselves to be siblings, and even in some forms of the canon, act on those feelings. The fact that canon vindicates them by ultimately proving that they aren't siblings isn't the point here - rather, the point is to look at how their behaviour might play out if they really truly _were_ siblings. 
> 
> I'm using the TV show as a basis because it's what reminded me of this. I'm keeping close specifically to early dickhead Jace characterisation as per books, film and show, because that gives me something fun to bounce things off. I'm keeping Clary as airheaded as she seems with her current (show) actress (sorry Kat McNamara, you're pretty as hell but you cannot act for shit) because that is actually pretty accurate to TV and books both where Clary impulsively does whatever she wants and it all turns out fine because wish-fulfilment fiction.
> 
> Basically, consider this me making some tweaks to canon to explore a question all of the canons have brought up (the incest question) and bringing in a hefty dose of consequences.
> 
> This is chapter one. There will be at least one more. Hopefully _just_ the one. Have fun, enjoy, and please leave comments!

Demon’s blood. Now he knows it’s there he can almost  _ feel _ it, coiling in his veins. Making his hatred more, his Wrath worse, his every deadly sin amplified. And if Valentine had done this to  _ him, _ his own  _ son, _ he dreaded to think what had been done to Clary-

Clary. He turns, punches outwards, his knuckles hitting the steel wall of the ship. Not that long ago his precision, his perception, his love of these fighting forms would have kept him from this injury. Now, with his emotions a riot of anger and betrayal he doesn’t have the focus. His knuckles are a bloodied mess.

Clary. What could Valentine have done to her? His… sister. It’s still a strange thing to think. Clary, his sister. His emotions _ not _ brotherly. How much of it was due to the demon’s blood in his veins? How much because he hadn’t even known he’d had a sister?

_ “That’s why you want Clary,” _ Valentine had said.  _ “That’s why you always will.” _

Love, turned against him.

And then, more recently, murder. His fighting - his anger tamed to purpose - turned against him too, that one thing he was always so good at.

_ “You’re stronger,”  _ Valentine had said.  _ “You’re better.” _

No he isn’t. Valentine said it himself - demon’s blood always shows through, is always a weakness. Eventually he’s going to give in and kill or do something else as horrible. He already  _ had, _ killing that vampire, Maria. How long before he gives in again, in some new way? Killing without cause, what next? His instincts turn him against his friends? His love for Clary-

That’s already wrong.

He’s fallen to Wrath and to Lust. How long before the other five sins claim him?

 

* * *

 

“You did this to me,” Jace says to Valentine. His tone is calm, no sense of judgement. Just acknowledgement. He can’t afford to fight now. “You did this to me. What did you do to Clary?”

Valentine smiles. “What a leap to make. I did this,” he gestures across the desk, “to you,  _ ergo _ I must have done something to your sister, yes?” He rises. “You’re not wrong. Come along, I’ll show you.”

 

* * *

 

Chained, chained deep in the hold of the ship, is a shining form so bright it can only be an angel.

It doesn’t look like the statue of Raziel in the Institute, but he’s read the old texts, he knows angels aren’t as simple as winged men. This creature, this angel… it doesn’t look even vaguely human, he wonders how it could even have  _ blood _ and yet…

“Yes,” Valentine says. “Demon blood for you, Angel blood for your sister. Demon blood for physical strength, Angel blood for the Marks. But it makes you both  _ weak.  _ You too readily give into your anger, Clary too readily to  _ love. _ This is why I need to train you. So you can be each other’s strength, not simple weaknesses.”

The angel, in it’s chains, is singing in golden fire. It’s eyes - so many of them - are watching him, warning and judgement both. It’s wings, chained down by some fine and shining metal - maybe the  _ adamas _ of the seraph blades - shiver and tremble as he steps close. Does it fear him, this angel? Sense the demon in his blood and hate to have him so near? The angel’s singing swings high and low, like the chants he remembers from Idris, sometimes crooning like a lullaby and sometimes some grand piece as though stating the will of God.

That’s what angels  _ are _ after all, isn’t it? The messengers of God.

And his father has one chained in the bowels of his ship.

 

* * *

 

Jace gets far away from Valentine before he lets himself be sick. Angel blood is better than that of demon’s, of  _ that _ there is no doubt: Clary is better off than he. But Valentine did this to them both, his own children, subjects of an experiment with no certain outcome. Demon’s blood… to a Shadowhunter child, already touched by angels, it could have killed him. He is surprised it did not.

Angel’s blood for Clary though… maybe she at least will be saved. Angel’s strength, their nearness to God… if God even exists anymore. How could He, to let one of His servants be chained in the bowels of a ship, slave to the whim of a monster? How could any loving God leave His own down there? Even Shadowhunters would not, and they had not the strength God was said to have.

Or is this blasphemy, his demon’s blood out to war with what little angel-touched remains in him? He’s never really believed before (believed that demons exist and in the evil they bring, and in the evil in the world, maybe, but in  _ God… _ ) but maybe that is due to the demon’s blood in his veins, trying to take him far from that which might save him. 

The blood is damned, after all. It makes sense it would want him to be damned too.

_ No, _ he thinks.  _ I refuse. _

He won’t be this, won’t be his father’s creation, the designs of the demon’s blood decided against his will. He is a person, he has free will and choice and the right to do whatever he damn well pleases.

He’s not going to give into this blood. It’s not  _ his. _ He did not ask for it. 

He’s going to fight it with everything he has.

 

* * *

 

He trains with Valentine’s new Shadowhunters. He’s better than them, faster, stronger. He tries not to think that too much, though - Pride - and instead focuses on getting better, on exhausting himself so that when he sleeps he at least doesn’t have nightmares. Or… the Other dreams. He doesn’t want either, but he’ll take the former over the latter.

It’s easier to crash into bed when he’s exhausted by training, it always has been. He’s almost certain that he won’t fall to Sloth, if only because he likes to be active too much. He won’t laze around all day, at least, he’s much more at risk of Pride than Sloth. He falls asleep soundly, and if he’s exhausted enough he won’t dream at all.

Better exhaustion than nightmares and staying up all hours picking apart the problems of his demon’s blood. Better exhaustion than the Other dreams.

Valentine takes him off the ship sometimes, takes him on what he calls missions and what Jace takes to calling “murder sprees”. They might as well be - the downworlders surrender before the end, every time, and, every time, Valentine convinces him to kill again.

He wonders if he’s even trying not to be convinced, or if he’s giving into the demon’s blood that so wants to be bathed in death.

Sometimes he tries to say no, but Valentine always seems to know the right words to make him twist his blade, stab the downworlder. He doesn’t dare think of them as more than that anymore. He refuses to listen when Valentine tells him their names, now, after Maria. 

_ Guilty conscience? _ He thinks sometimes. He considers trying harder to not let Valentine mould him, but he barely understands what Valentine is doing now. How can he fight an enemy he doesn’t know?

Blindly, he supposes. He’d be better if Alec were here. He’s always seen more clearly with his  _ parabatai  _ at his side, with Alec’s sense to help him see through lies, to help him plan. Having Alec there meant he had to think about someone else, he couldn’t be so reckless.

Now there’s no one but him, and he might as well be damned.

 

* * *

 

Clary comes aboard the ship struggling through a portal. Valentine’s Shadowhunters close in around her, but Dot, hauling her through the portal shoulders her way through.

Jace is just one more body in the crowd as Clary is hauled towards Valentine.

“My daughter,” Valentine says, beaming and arrogant and everything horrible. “Clarissa. Come, come, we have much to talk on.”

 

* * *

 

She’s shaking when she finds Jace. He’s sat on the balcony, the almost-crow’s-nest, watching Valentine’s Shadowhunters settle down on the deck to sleep.

“I don’t believe it,” she says. “I  _ can’t. _ Siblings, I could have believed that and just that but all of this?” She gestures vaguely, eyes damp. “No. Not all of this. We can’t be siblings, he can’t have put  _ demon  _ blood in you, experimented on his own  _ son _ . He’s a monster. He lies. I can’t… none of this can be true.”

“He put angel blood in you, though,” Jace replies. “To make you stronger. You learned the Marks so quickly, you love your friends so strongly. He really did.”

Clary shakes her head. “No,” she says. “He  _ can’t.” _

Jace turns to Clary, looks her in the eye. “Clary,” he says. “I’ve seen the angel.”

 

* * *

 

Her hand is cold in his as he leads her to the room the angel is chained in. He doesn’t know the passcode but he doesn’t need to. Clary’s fingers twitch in his as soon as she hears it’s song.

They get to the door and Clary stands on tiptoe to look through the window. The angel’s song shifts, golden fire to silver, burning anger to soft sorrow. The angel croons to Clary, an apology and a wish, and Clary presses her hands flat to the door.

“We’re going to get you out,” she promises the angel. “Even if we have to kill Valentine to do it.”

 

* * *

 

Her arms are wrapped around herself when they get back to the balcony. She sits at the edge, her feet dangling off into empty space and Jace sits down next to her. Below them, on the deck, Valentine’s Shadowhunters are sleeping. 

“Where do we sleep?” she asks. “Do we have cabins?”

He shakes his head. “On the deck, with everyone else. If we’re good, we get blankets. Valentine says it’s to toughen us up, to make sure we practice our Marks.”

Clary frowns. “But we know our Marks.”

_ “‘Practice makes perfect,’” _ Jace quotes. “Ask him, that’s what he’ll say.”

“So why don’t you just leave?”

Jace barks a laugh. “Your mom tried to kill me.” He pauses, thinks.  _ “My _ mom.”

Clary’s voice is a whisper. “She was aiming for Valentine.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t seem that way.”

Beside him, Clary sighs, leans against his arm. He itches to reach out, tuck her against him and offer her comfort, but he  _ can’t. _ He won’t give into the demon’s blood.

“We should leave,” she says. “Go AWOL through a portal, leap overboard-”

“There’s spells,” Jace says. “Protections, wards. I saw them burn someone’s face off when Valentine pushed them like… a foot over the railing.”

“So a portal.”

Clary’s always hopeful -  _ probably from her angel blood, _ he thinks - but here, now, after he’s been considering this so long it feels like needless stubbornness. Like it’s pointless.

“You’ll only be allowed to portal back when he allows it. He’ll probably take you on a trip, have you kill some downworlder who’s surrendered.”

For a moment, Clary’s head lifts away from his shoulder. “That’s why you stabbed that vampire,” she says.

He says nothing.

“Jace!  _ God. _ Why didn’t you tell us?”

_ Oh,  _ **_fuck,_ ** _ Clary, maybe because your mom was shooting at me with a fucking crossbow? _

He doesn’t say it, but it’s a close thing.  _ No Wrath, _ he thinks.  _ No more sins. _

It’s tempting to, though, just as it’s tempting to kill those downworlders each time. 

It’s a failing, he supposes, that he can refuse temptation here, but give into it so easily when it comes to killing. Then again, he was trained to kill. Valentine showed him how to kill, encouraged it,  _ encourages _ it. The only praise he gets, these days, is when he kills for Valentine. 

“Jace?”

He wants to kiss her. Or to hug her, or to just.  _ Something _ other than talk about this, than see her pity him. Valentine’s fucked them both over with his experiments, she could at least pity herself a bit.

She, at least, has no reason to loathe herself.

 

* * *

 

He gives her his blankets to sleep on, then finds a corner the other side of the deck to fall asleep on. Clary’s fingers catch on his jacket, try to keep him close - “Please, Jace. I don’t want to be alone here.”

“You’re not,” he says, gesturing around them before loosening her fingers’ grip. “But I need to be, right now.”

She looks at him, goddamn puppy-eyes, and he almost gives in.

_ “No, _ Clary. I want space. Can’t I have that?”

He falls asleep at the far side of the deck, where he can barely even see her hair amongst the bodies of everyone else.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
